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I am the founder and executor of Talocan United, the largest pure wormhole-based alliance in game. I personally began playing EVE during the Apocrypha expansion (2009), and I have lived in or operated in wormholes since the second month of my EVE career. I would like to make use of my specific experience and viewpoint in representing both the members of wormhole space and the greater New Eden.

Wormhole space, although at times brutal, is an excellent proving grounds for a progressing player. To be successful, a pilot must be able to use a wide range of in-game skills; and in my development I've learned of PVE, exploration and scouting, mining and harvesting, research, production, leadership, PVP, transportation, marketeering, and planetary interaction. But there's plenty I've learned that isn't reflected in skillpoints. I've also had the unique experience of growing an entire alliance from a one-man corp in a C4 system into a well-known, well-established 650-man alliance. Over the course of the past two years, I've had to learn the balances between patience and action, diplomacy and aggression, leniency and standards, vision and practicality, and EVE and my personal life. I would like to think I've come out on the better end of it all.

Although I think my time spent in wormholes has given me a strong foundation, I do not intend to advance only wormhole-related concerns to the CCP offices. And as the fundamental purpose of the Council of Stellar Management is communication between the player base and CCP, I will also not be running a platform based on broad, sweeping changes to any particular element of EVE. (Well, except maybe POS's, but this is nothing new to fellow wormholers.) I will instead be focusing on two elements that are important to me.

First is communication, as it was the entire reason the CSM was formed. Communication of one kind or another has always been vital to me (and is, in fact, one of my IRL degrees). To give an example, our alliance's website conveys a large quantity of information that has helped many incoming pilots adjust to wormhole space. No candidate can be a strong candidate if he forgets his ultimate priority.

Second is a respect for diversity, something I've made sure my alliance has held from the very start. We do not all roll in large deadspace-fit T3 gangs (although some do). Some of us like to camp systems in stealth bombers; some like to farm Sleeper NPCs; some like to manufacture and research; some of us even like to mine ABC ore while we talk with friends over TeamSpeak. Sometimes we blob, when we feel the situation warrants it. In most cases, however, our fleets are perhaps a dozen, if not far fewer. We hunt wormhole space, low-sec, and null. We live in systems ranging from C1's and C2's to higher C5's. We are an alliance founded on diversity and mutual respect for the playstyles of others, and we have shown more than one corp the door that has breached this sacred trust.

While any specific change to EVE's mechanics will always advantage one group over another, I believe it is my job to represent this aforementioned mindset...to promote a wide variety of improvements that ultimately remembers everyone, from the richest, most devoted pilots to those who can only sign in on weekends to run their PI. Because in the end, we all pay for our subscription.

I appreciate your consideration for me as your candidate for CSM8. Win or lose, I firmly believe it is important for me to run.

If you have any questions at all, such as my thoughts on particular aspects of EVE, please feel free to leave them here or send them via Eve-mail. Also feel free to contact me in-game on either this character or my alt, Thomas Broker.

What is your platform and how it affects our way of life? (in w-space)

His platform is communication and diversity! His alliance has a website!

And how!

As the original post was an announcement of candidacy, I wanted to keep it short and unburdened. More specific details (any views on POS changes, new content for PVE, T3 balance issues, the deflating wormhole market, etc.) will be on my blogpost I am putting together at http://csm.talocanunited.com.

I will be posting longer pieces of writing there and updating this thread whenever I do.

Explorer Corps

I am the founder and executor of Talocan United, a pure wormhole-based alliance that operates in a wide range of activities (though pew is always our favorite). I personally began playing EVE during the Apocrypha expansion (2009), and I have lived in or operated in wormholes since the second month of my EVE career. I would like to make use of my specific experience and viewpoint in representing both the members of wormhole space and the greater New Eden.

Wormhole space, although at times brutal, is an excellent proving grounds for a progressing player. To be successful, a pilot must be able to use a wide range of in-game skills; and in my development I've learned of PVE, exploration and scouting, mining and harvesting, research, production, leadership, PVP, transportation, marketeering, and planetary interaction. But there's plenty I've learned that isn't reflected in skillpoints. I've also had the unique experience of growing an entire alliance from a one-man corp in a C4 system into a well-known, well-established 650-man alliance. Over the course of the past two years, I've had to learn the balances between patience and action, diplomacy and aggression, leniency and standards, vision and practicality, and EVE and my personal life. I would like to think I've come out on the better end of it all.

Although I think my time spent in wormholes has given me a strong foundation, I do not intend to advance only wormhole-related concerns to the CCP offices. And as the fundamental purpose of the Council of Stellar Management is communication between the player base and CCP, I will also not be running a platform based on broad, sweeping changes to any particular element of EVE. (Well, except maybe POS's, but this is nothing new to fellow wormholers.) I will instead be focusing on two elements that are important to me.

First is communication, as it was the entire reason the CSM was formed. Communication of one kind or another has always been vital to me (and is, in fact, one of my IRL degrees). To give an example, our alliance's website conveys a large quantity of information that has helped many incoming pilots adjust to wormhole space. No candidate can be a strong candidate if he forgets his ultimate priority.

Second is a respect for diversity, something I've made sure my alliance has held from the very start. We do not all roll in large deadspace-fit T3 gangs (although some do). Some of us like to camp systems in stealth bombers; some like to farm Sleeper NPCs; some like to manufacture and research; some of us even like to mine ABC ore while we talk with friends over TeamSpeak. Sometimes we blob, when we feel the situation warrants it. In most cases, however, our fleets are perhaps a dozen, if not far fewer. We hunt wormhole space, low-sec, and null. We live in systems ranging from C1's and C2's to higher C5's. We are an alliance founded on diversity and mutual respect for the playstyles of others, and we have shown more than one corp the door that has breached this sacred trust.

While any specific change to EVE's mechanics will always advantage one group over another, I believe it is my job to represent this aforementioned mindset...to promote a wide variety of improvements that ultimately remembers everyone, from the richest, most devoted pilots to those who can only sign in on weekends to run their PI. Because in the end, we all pay for our subscription.

I appreciate your consideration for me as your candidate for CSM8. Win or lose, I firmly believe it is important for me to run.

If you have any questions at all, such as my thoughts on particular aspects of EVE, please feel free to leave them here or send them via Eve-mail. Also feel free to contact me in-game on either this character or my alt, Thomas Broker.

I look forward to your feedback, well-wishers and trolls alike.

I was on the Talocan United board and worked closely with you and your leadership and I will not be voting for you.

Windrammers

While I have not personally decided on who to vote to represent womrhole space yet I have worked with Jameson in the past a few times before. He is a highly motivated player who has worked hard to keep a fresh flow of new players in the lower class wormholes.

koahisquad

Part of your platform is communication. What makes you more suited to gain communication votes than Ripard Teg, the other candidate who is seriously running with communication as one of his selling points?

How can you prove that you will effectively communicate? Do you have a blog with evidence of communication in the past? I see you're planning to start a blog at Talocan United; have you any experience of writing blogs in the past? Are you aware of how much time every day you need to spend writing in order to satisfy your readers? Are you prepared to do that? Are you prepared to do that and pull your weight in CSM meetings, CSM minutes, CSM documents, forum posting, appearances on podcasts and actually playing the game to keep up with current mechanics and opinions?

I'd like to hear more about how you intend to communicate please, as well as what you intend to communicate. Proof that you're capable of it would also be nice - and linking a corp website that 'conveys lots of information' isn't going to impress anyone.

Communication takes many different forms, from public speaking to interpersonal communication to forum posts to blogs. My specific experience lies in the realm of drafting reference guides and protocols in a form that should make sense to the casual reader. Simplifying for the common denominator, in other words. This is why I linked the website; I wrote everything on it that's not attributed to someone else.

The blog I'm creating for a similar purpose. It is not so much for daily musings as for organized treatises and theses that interested parties can refer to. For example, I'll have a page on what I feel are the most critical issues in wormhole space (none of which should come as a surprise) and another perhaps for new content I'd like to see, such as random Sleeper triggers. This way, I can go back and edit and further refine on the same page.

For those not subject to my innumerable alliance mails and forum posts, I'll be connecting through other avenues of media. I'm already scheduled to be on Eve Uni's upcoming Wormhole Roundtable, for example (though not as one of the main speakers) and I intend to also speak on EveRadio once details have been sorted. I'd also like to offer an open question and answer session, much like the one I hosted for Two Step when he was running for CSM last year. Beyond this, it will need to be consistent and regular communication to simply prove what I stated.

Does this address your question adequately, or is there something else you'd like me to clear up?

Communication takes many different forms, from public speaking to interpersonal communication to forum posts to blogs. My specific experience lies in the realm of drafting reference guides and protocols in a form that should make sense to the casual reader. Simplifying for the common denominator, in other words. This is why I linked the website; I wrote everything on it that's not attributed to someone else.

The blog I'm creating for a similar purpose. It is not so much for daily musings as for organized treatises and theses that interested parties can refer to. For example, I'll have a page on what I feel are the most critical issues in wormhole space (none of which should come as a surprise) and another perhaps for new content I'd like to see, such as random Sleeper triggers. This way, I can go back and edit and further refine on the same page.

For those not subject to my innumerable alliance mails and forum posts, I'll be connecting through other avenues of media. I'm already scheduled to be on Eve Uni's upcoming Wormhole Roundtable, for example (though not as one of the main speakers) and I intend to also speak on EveRadio once details have been sorted. I'd also like to offer an open question and answer session, much like the one I hosted for Two Step when he was running for CSM last year. Beyond this, it will need to be consistent and regular communication to simply prove what I stated.

Does this address your question adequately, or is there something else you'd like me to clear up?

Could you answer Kainotomiu's question about the two specific blog entries he provided?

Could you answer Kainotomiu's question about the two specific blog entries he provided?

Lol, that horizontal line made me think that question was in his signature. I thought it was rather odd. Will update with response shortly.

EDIT: All right, I don't like either of the blog posts. They're both greatly generalizing and make statements that are accepted as truth without solid evidence. A few examples:

Ripard Teg : "To me, the interesting thing about the argument that un-docking serves as consent to PvP is that the people who make this argument invariably make it from a position of enormous strength."This is incorrect. The element of EVE that first attracted me to it, and in fact got my paid subscription in the first 48 hours, was that I WAS vulnerable to everyone out there. You actually had to PLAY this game, not simply coast along with a set of pre-defined heuristics. There are plenty of players (and my friends) who also state that what drew them to the game were the stories of treachery, backstabbing, and cutthroat behavior sanctioned by a major game company, as you could find this in no other game. It is its uniqueness. (What percentage of new players think as I did is unknown, but you can't simply wave your hand and say none.)

James 315: "Despite the fact that wardecs have been repeatedly nerfed to make highsec safer..."Actually, the most effective nerf to wardecing was a player-created initiative called DecShield that forced the Devs to actually rewrite how wardecs worked.

"The substance of Ripard's argument is that in the same way women shouldn't need to alter their clothing to avoid sexual assault, a miner shouldn't need to fit a tank to avoid being ganked." Again, this is ignoring the final words that Ripard put out, which was simply: "This sort of thing happens every single day in EVE and most of us have just come to accept it -- and the cost it wreaks in player unsubs -- as part of the game. The question that started the philosophical debate: should we? I still don't know." Ripard sought to ask a question, not make a conclusion. At least not in that post.

If I had to decide on writing styles and flow of logic, then, I would go with Ripard, as I think James is missing the point. However, as I believe you're asking more if I agree or disagree with James' response to Ripard, I will have to say I agree a lot with James' mindset. When I first moved into my own wormhole, I set up a small tower with as many defenses as it could afford, and spent the time imagining fleets of battleship behind every moon. I loaded the system with scan alts, did what I could to make sure I harvested gas in peace (in my ignorance, simply not opening connections), and used my diplomacy skills to build relationships with like-minded or more powerful groups. I did not cry any time I was blown up, whether by ill fortune or my own stupidity. And now I'm at the lead of a well-established wormhole alliance. I like to tell myself there's a connection.

It ultimately comes down to precedent and how CCP intends for their game to be defined. If it IS truly as an open-ended sandbox, one that promotes both villainy and heroism (or at least common sense), then we need to put in enablers for both types of people. Recent boosts to Destroyers allowed griefers to hit harder with cheaper ships. The recent suspect flags and kill rights, in turn, allowed those griefers to be hunted then or later, perhaps by other people. I am not going to address if the present power struggle is perfectly balanced, just that CCP is attempting to address both sides. As they should.

TL;DR: +1 Ripard for use of logic and writing ability, +1 James for similarity with personal opinions.